irishescaper

We'll be in Venice for Carnivale in mid February. What can we expect in terms of crowds, weather (e.g., streets under water), events, etc. Thanks for your help!

Balm

Had a great pleasure to see Venice under a snowcover, but it is rare, I was told. Yes, there are crowds, but during carnival I found them more entertaining than annoying

Iceflower1

It will be cold. Most probably no snow, but cold. Here you will find all info, you need.
www.carnivalofvenice.com
Let's meet there, I will join this wonder too.

DRJ

I've been to two carnivale. Enormous crowds, costumes all over, mayhem, fun.

altajoe

Bring a good digital camera and plenty of memory cards. Set to the highest resolution and click away. The costumes are unbelievable. They are there to be seen an photographed, so just politely ask permission and they'll pose for you. We have an entire wall in our house filled with 8x10's from our previous two Carnevale visits.

There will be huge crowds in Piazza San Marco, so you'll have to get comfortable retreating to the quieter parts of the city. However, this is a MUST anytime of the year.

RobinBinNYC

I was in Venice for Carnivale in 1998 - at the height of "El Niño". It was 70 degrees in the middle of February; I suppose that's not likely this year! I will say that it was VERY crowded. Many of the "streets" there are long and narrow, almost like alleyways, and at times it was like standstill traffic in NYC or LA - except you are packed in with other people, not cars. Leave tme to duck into cafes to decompress if you have any claustrophobic tendencies as I do! As mentioned by others, however, the people who will be surrounding you will be wonderful to look at; the costumes are amazing and the people wearing them, regal.

rodeo_roze

I live about an hour north of Venice by train. We have experienced cold temperatures, ice and frost some mornings, and a lot of rain. Expect Venice to be very cold. Plan to have gloves, heavy coats, and scarves to keep your face from being exposed at long intervals to the chill.

Crowds in the St Marks area will be equal to those of Bourbon street in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. For security sake, plan to have a money belt under your clothing. Put minimal amounts of euro in their and the rest in the toe of your shoe. This prevents pickpockets from getting everything you have. If you carry a purse, keep it tucked under your arm at all times. Men, don't leave your wallet in your pants, again either use a money belt or an inside pocket of a coat that you'll have zipped up. Leave any valuables at your hotel. We've had several friends who've been victims of pickpockets in calm days of fall so expect that they will be all over during this very festive time.

Always ask permission to get people to pose for you. To do this in Italian the word is simply Permisso (said as per-mees-so)Then remember to say please (Perfavore -said as Per-fa-vor-eh) and thank you (Grazie - said as Grats-e-eh). It is okay to take shots of people as part of the scene, it's really when you are isolating and making three or less your focal that you must ask.

I'll be there dressed up and masked as will my daughter, so we look forward to sharing this wonderful experience with you!

dpranck

this is totally off the subject of Carnivale...has anyone been to Venice for New Years? WOuld love to hear about it.

Peter_S_Aus

We were there six weeks ago.
Here are my comments about New Year:
New Year.
There is a smell to New Years Eve in Venice, compounded of pizza, cooked fish, and freshly baked bread. There is another vital ingredient in the mix – the smell of black powder. Fireworks are available at our local mini mart, and the explosions started around dusk, about 5:00 PM this time of year, and continued until the small hours. Fireworks is really a misnomer – there were crackers being let off in San Marco about the size of a milk carton, which qualifies them as ordnance. I might mention that the entire population of Venice was in San Marco at the time, and so a little circle was cleared in the middle for the fireworks, displacing children, cops, prams and dogs – cleared by letting off fireworks.

There was a New Years Eve concert in San Marco, themed on “Love”, or “Lerve”, take your pick. Lots of encouragement to love, kiss somebody, anybody.
“Love to everyone, love to the world, we love you all”.
Followed by crash of exploding ordnance, loud enough to make the air pulsate and the window shutters dance.

The whole charade was sponsored by the bottlers of Bellini, a pleasant concoction of peach juice and prosecco, a light sparkling white. We watched the Bellinii boys set out a couple of thousand plastic glasses for the crowd and fill them. Australia has the big banana, the big pineapple and the big Merino at Goulburn, and San Marco had the big inflated Bellini bottle. Bellini cocktails were invented by Cipriani, operator of Harry’s bar, Hemingway’s favourite drinking haunt, but not Hemingway’s favourite drink, and I’ve always thought of him as a bourbon or rough rye man myself. But Ernest did try a Bellini once, labelling it a drink for sissies, and suggesting that it was more appropriate for his drinking buddy, Scott Fitzgerald. One wonders what Hemingway would have thought of a thousand sneaker shod tourists consuming his not favourite cocktail.

A little dialogue, quoted from a not-remembered source,
Fitzgerald - “The rich, they’re different to you and me”.
Hemmingway - “Yeah, they’ve got more money”.

It started to snow just before the stroke of midnight, which was quite magical, and one could imagine that the snow was the result of excellent stage management. This did not dampen the fireworks in the least. The snow lasted in places for a whole week – it’s been exceptionally cold, daytime max of about one degree, if that.